Life & Cats

If you have no hooks on which to hang your memories, life can seem terribly short. By hooks, I mean those memorable moments in our lives that stand out bright and shiny. Then we string them together, with gray gaps in between. Without the hooks, it would all seem like a gray wasteland that lasted only seconds. J. Alfred Prufrock, in his ironic love song, said he has “measured out my life with coffee spoons.” I do the same thing but with haircuts, golf rounds, and pets that have come and gone. Andy Rooney says, “Just looking at the coffee cans I’ve saved makes life look like practically forever.” He goes on to say if he measured it in food he’s eaten, not in pounds but in tons, life would seem unmanageably long. “I must have eaten ten tons of ice cream alone in my lifetime. It makes life seem long and lovely just thinking about every bite of it.” Ah, yes, ice cream, Andy. An ice cream lifespan would be good, every mouthful lovely. Too bad for most of us that there are also the broccoli bites.

We took our car in for a service check yesterday. We had time for breakfast at a wonderful little restaurant called Brenda's, after which we stopped at a nearby thrift shop and pet store called “4 Paws,” where thirteen years ago we got our two cats, Dusty and Squeakie. Just had to look. There were at least twenty full grown cats all waiting hopefully for adoption, beautiful multi-colored cats, all willing to have a chin scratched, all begging us with big cat eyes to take them to our bosoms. I’d have been willing, but better sense prevailed (Rosalie, that is). Soon, we know, Dusty will be gone and we’ll want to replace him with one or two kittens. Knowing how marshmallow soft we both are, it will probably be two. On this day, all the kittens were elsewhere so we didn’t get to see any, but we’ll be back, and two will very likely come home with us.